Shadow libraries

For independent, shadow, feminist, free/libre, self-hosted, pirate, autonomous, collective, community and artist digital libraries

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AAAAARG
Anna's Archive
Bibliotecha
Bootleg Library
Creating Commons
Feminist Search Tools
Giving What You Don't Have
Infrastructural Manœuvres
Interfacing the Law
Library Genesis
Library of Inclusions and Omissions
Monoskop
Piracy Project
Pirate Care Syllabus
Public Library / Memory of the World
Radovan from planet Meta
Sci-Hub
Teaching the Radical Catalogue
Textz.com
UbuWeb
Unbound Libraries
WORM Pirate Bay

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Timeline

🗐 Careful: A Repertorium on Shadow Library Practice, Basel: distro, Nov 2025.

• Careful vs Careless: Library Custodians and Artificial Readers + Library, A Network of Relations, exhibitions, distro, Basel, 5–17 November 2025. With Library of Inclusions and Omissions, Monoskop, Public Library / Memory of the World, a.o.

• Prototypes for a pirate colportage, erg (school of graphic research), Brussels, 17–19 January 2025. Organised in the context of Les nouveaux habits du colportage carried out by Alexia de Visscher, Léonard Mabille and Alice Néron.

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  Read Write Run, Klagenfurt, 2024. Photo: Johannes Puch.

• Read Write Run, exhibition, Kunstraum Lakeside, Klagenfurt, 25 September–15 November 2024. With Constant, Institute for Computational Vandalism, The Institute for Technology in the Public Interest (TITiPI), Memory of the World, Monoskop, permacomputing.net, UbuWeb, Varia, a.o. Exhibition by Dušan Barok. Curated by Gudrun Ratzinger and Franz Thalmair.

• Les formes de la piraterie, La Cambre/erg, Brussels, 6–10 November 2023. Organised in the context of Les nouveaux habits du colportage carried out by Alexia de Visscher, Léonard Mabille and Alice Néron.

One of the most important internet activists to date, Aaron Swartz strongly shaped and influenced the development of the Web in his short lifetime, envisioning and participating in essential and innovative net projects such as: drafting Creative Commons licensing models, defining RSS standards, or working on platforms such as Reddit or anonymous whistleblowing sites, amongst others. Curious about the world and mostly self-taught, he was passionate about libraries and a defender of open archives. Conscious about the immense benefits for the creative developments of arts, science, and society provided by open knowledge, F/LOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software) movement, and net neutrality, he kept actively advocating for those causes.

In the same spirit, providing free public access to academic journals by releasing them from a paywall, Alexandra Elbakyan at just 23 years old developed the Sci-Hub platform in 2011: “The project is legal, while restricting access to information and knowledge is not. The current operation of the academic publishing industry is a massive violation of human rights”, she states. Accused of copyright violation or piracy, the web page has its access blocked by many ISPs (Internet Service Providers) and is only accessible through Virtual Private Networks, TOR Browser, or mirror sites.

“But sharing isn’t immoral–it’s a moral imperative. Only those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy”, declares Swartz, in his Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto (2008). (mur.at, 2023)

• Unarchive, online exhibition, mur.at, Graz, 2023. Organised and curated by Andreas Zingerle. Works. Radio interviews.

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  Reading the Library, flyer, 2021.
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  🗐 Der radikale Katalog, special issue of Fabrikzeitung, Zürich: Rote Fabrik, Dec 2021.

• Reading the Library: An exhibition on feminist and de-colonial approaches to systems of ordering knowledge, Sitterwerk, St. Gallen, 29 August–7 November 2021. An exhibition on feminist and de-colonial approaches to systems of ordering knowledge. With Bibliothek Wyborada, Constant, Feminist Search Tools, Infrastructural Manoeuvres, Library of Inclusions and Omissions, The Rewrite, a.o. Concept and realisation: Barbara Biedermann, Lucie Kolb and Eva Weinmayr. About: Stefanie Manthey (Kunstbulletin), Benjamin von Wyl (swissinfo).
  • Teaching the Radical Catalogue: A Syllabus 2021–22, course, Kunstbibliothek and Werkstoffarchiv Sitterwerk, St. Gallen, 2021-2022. Instructors: Eva Weinmayr and Lucie Kolb. Course resources, [1]. Video conversations.

• Experimental Publishing and Alternative Networked Cultures, panel discussion, Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing, Reading University / online, 29 April 2021. Convened by Ruth Blacksell and Lozana Rossenova. Video (130 min).

• Unbound Libraries, worksession, Brussels, Rotterdam, Utrecht, North-England and online, 31 May–5 June 2020. Organised by Constant. Audio and video. Documentation, Index of materials. [2]

The digital networks have expanded the volume of available text exponentially since to the days of print. So much so that if we were to print out a catalogue of books that we can store a personal computer hard-drive, the catalogue would require a couple of large volumes of fine print. Yet, in many situations and many societies, reading from paper still remains the preferred way of accessing knowledge.

At the same time, pirate copying and distribution we tend to perceive as a phenomenon of digital culture. However, the dissemination of knowledge before the digital depended crucially on photocopying and pirate re-prints. Photocopied books and articles passed down from generation to generation and from scientist to scientist have enabled many to finish their studies, to become scientists and to teach younger generations. The „knowledge society” three decades ago would not have been conceivable without the illegal sharing of knowledge, just as the „knowledge society” today isn’t conceivable without the illegal sharing of knowledge. Therefore, the past and the future of struggles over access to knowledge can be gleaned from paper struggles. (Public Library, 2020)

• Paper Struggles; Public Library / Borbe s papirom; Javna knjižnica, exhibition, Galerija Nova, Zagreb, 16–24 October 2020. With Monoskop, Public Library / Memory of the World, Rameshwari Photocopy Services, UbuWeb, a.o. Produced by Multimedia Institute, Coventry University’s Centre for Postdigital Cultures and WHW, What, how and for whom. Photos.

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  Memory of the World catalogue by Slowrotation at Paper Struggles, 2019.

• Paper Struggles / Public Library and the Property Form, exhibition and seminar, Raven Row, London, 9–11 December 2019. With Monoskop, Piracy Project, Public Library / Memory of the World, Rameshwari Photocopy Services, UbuWeb, a.o. Organised by Post Office (Centre for Postdigital Cultures at Coventry University). Photos. FB event. [3] [4] [5]

🗐 Open Scores: How to Program the Commons, ed. Creating Commons, 2020.

• Open Scores, exhibition and workshops, panke.gallery, Berlin, 21 September–12 October 2019. "This exhibition brings together 16 practices through which artists articulate their own forms of (digital) commons. From online archives, to digital tools/infrastructure and educational formats, the projects envision a (post-)digital culture in which notions of collaboration, free access to knowledge, sustainable use of shared resources and data privacy are central." With 0xdb.org, Aaaaarg, AND publishing, Constant, CuratingYoutube.net, dock18.ch, erg.be, Furtherfield, Monoskop, Mz* Baltazar’s Lab, NetHood, Neural, Public Library / Memory of the World, #QUEERingNETWORKing, Tactical Tech, UbuWeb, a.o. Curated by Creating Commons. The "Temporary Library for Creating Commons" is available at MIZ, the library of Zurich University of the Arts. Catalogue. Exh. guide. FB.

• Pirate Care, conference, Centre for Postdigital Cultures, Coventry University, 19–20 June 2019. CfP. FB. Video.

• Interfacing the Law (2019), Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, Spring 2019. Seminar in experimental publishing, convened by Femke Snelting.

• Artistic Shadow Libraries, video installation, within Find the File festival, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 21–24 March 2019. Cornelia Sollfrank’s interview montage shows artists creating web archives as commons practice.

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  Exhibition Library, Seoul, 2018. Photo: Lee Kai Chung.

• Exhibition Library, exhibition, Seoul Mediacity Biennale 2018: Eu Zen, Seoul Museum of Art, 5 September–18 November 2018. "For this work, artists, designers, curators, poets and collectives created thirty catalogues of imaginary exhibitions. Exploring both the potential and impossible in art, the resulting exhibition library also serves as a “library of exhibitions.”" With Audio Visual Pavilion, Mediabus, Monoskop, Multimedia Institute, Museum of American Art-Berlin, Possible Bodies, Purple Noise, Supermuch, Technopolitics Working Group, UbuWeb, a.o. Convened by Dušan Barok. Curated by Kyung Yong Lim.

🗐 Guerrilla Open Access, ed. Memory of the World, 2018.

• Radical Open Access II – The Ethics of Care, conference, 26–27 June 2018. "Two days of critical discussion about creating a more diverse and equitable future for open access." With Culture Machine, Mattering Press, Memory of the World / Public Library, meson press, Open Humanities Press, POP, punctum books, a.o. Organised by The Post Office. [6]

• Interfacing the Law (2018), Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, Spring 2018. Seminar in experimental publishing, convened by Femke Snelting.

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• Shadow Libraries: UbuWeb in Athens, exhibition, symposium and workshops, Onassis Cultural Center & National Museum of Contemporary Art (ESTE), Athens, 16–18 March 2018. "What is UbuWeb? Is an archive capable to propose a different sort of art history? 3 days of talks and workshops in order to explore this and other shadow libraries." With Creating Commons, Eclipse, Jean Boîte Éditions, K-Hole, Monoskop, PennSound, People Like Us, The Pirate Bay, Public Library / Memory of the World, UbuWeb, a.o. Curated by Ilan Manouach and Kenneth Goldsmith. Booklet PDF.

• Knowledge Architectures: Lahore, workshop, Centre for Governance and Policy, IT University of the Punjab in Lahore, Pakistan, 12–13 March 2018.

• Creating Commons, Research Meeting 1: “Archives and Libraries”, House of Electronic Arts (HEK), Basel, 19–22 October 2017. With 0xdb, Aaaaarg, Creating Commons, Monoskop, Public Library / Memory of the World, a.o. Convened by Creating Commons (Cornelia Sollfrank, Felix Stalder and Shusha Niederberger).

• "Caring for the Open: Custodianship, Accessibility" panel discussion at GfM-Jahrestagung 2017: Zugänge, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, 5 October 2017.

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  The Serving Library in The House That Heals the Soul, 2017.

• The House That Heals the Soul, exhibition, Centre for Contemporary Art Glasgow, 22 July–3 September 2017. "Public libraries have become one of the last remaining spaces where people can gather without expectation or requirement. As the future of libraries and their buildings becomes increasingly precarious, this exhibition aims to expand an understanding of the potential of libraries as sites of resistance, shelter, preservation, creation and restitution, and to do so in a dynamically public way as a functioning library of libraries." With Aaaaarg, The Book Lovers, My Bookcase, OOMK, Publication Studio Glasgow, The Serving Library, Temporary Services, a.o. Curators: Viviana Checchia, Ainslie Roddick, Nick Thurston. [7]

• Let’s Build a Library Together, workshop, IZK Institute for Contemporary Art, Graz, 29 May–2 June 2017. [8]

• Pravo na stanovanje, pravo na obrazovanje – javne borbe i javna knjižnica / Public Library/Javna knjižnica: digitalni arhivi, arhitektura i aktivizam, exhibition, workshop and discussion, Omladinski centar CK13 & Galerija SULUV, Novi Sad, 4–12 May 2017. Catalogue.

• Interfacing the Law, Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, Spring 2017. Seminar in experimental publishing, convened by Femke Snelting.

Happy birthday, Ubu.com!

Dear fellow custodian,

Ubu.com turns 20 this year. For about the same time the Internet has been a mass medium on a global scale and we, personally, have been using it on a daily basis. This is a perfect occasion for a gift - to Ubu, to the Internet and to ourselves: two mirrors, one at ubu.memoryoftheworld.org and one at ubu-mirror.ch. (Custodians.online, 2016)

• 🗐 "Happy birthday, Ubu.com!", Custodians.online, 30 November 2016; posted on Nettime, 30 November 2016.

• Knowledge Architectures talks and workshops, Tata Institute for Social Sciences, Mumbai, 2-6 Jul 2016. Scanning Workshop, CAMP, Mumbai, 2–3 July 2016.

• Radical Piratical, symposium, University of Malmö, 2–3 May 2016. Convened by Nikita Mazurov.

• Custodians.online – The Struggle over the Future of »Pirate« Libraries and Universal Access to Knowledge, discussion, Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, 19 February 2016. About: Dennis Yi Tenen (Schloss Post), Sarah Laskow (Atlas Obscura).

• Militant Technics, MayDay Rooms, London, 6–10 December 2015. With Aaaaarg / Public School, Pirate Cinema, Public Library, Memory of the World and MayDay Rooms.

In Elsevier's case against Sci-Hub and Library Genesis, the judge said: "simply making copyrighted content available for free via a foreign website, disserves the public interest." Alexandra Elbakyan's original plea put the stakes much higher: "If Elsevier manages to shut down our projects or force them into the darknet, that will demonstrate an important idea: that the public does not have the right to knowledge."

We demonstrate daily, and on a massive scale, that the system is broken. We share our writing secretly behind the backs of our publishers, circumvent paywalls to access articles and publications, digitize and upload books to libraries. This is the other side of 37% profit margins: our knowledge commons grows in the fault lines of a broken system. We are all custodians of knowledge, custodians of the same infrastructures that we depend on for producing knowledge, custodians of our fertile but fragile commons. To be a custodian is, de facto, to download, to share, to read, to write, to review, to edit, to digitize, to archive, to maintain libraries, to make them accessible. It is to be of use to, not to make property of, our knowledge commons. (Custodians.online, 2015)

• 🗐 "In solidarity with Library Genesis and Sci-Hub", Custodians.online, 30 November 2015. Open letter.

🗐 Mondothèque: A Radiated Book, Brussels: Constant, Sep 2016.

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  Paul Otlet, Mondothèque: Pantothèque - Mundaneum - (Documentothèque), 1936.

Once one read; today one refers to, checks through, skims. (Paul Otlet, 1903)

• Ideographies of Knowledge, Mundaneum, Mons, 3 October 2015. "A symposium unfolding from the intention to reflect upon the legacy of Paul Otlet and his work from the perspective of today's knowledge archives." With CAS FAMU, Constant, Monoskop, Mundaneum, Public Library / Memory of the World, XPUB, a.o. Convened by Dušan Barok. Video.

• Otpisane, povodom 20. godišnjice Oluje / Written-off, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Storm, exhibition, Galerija Nova, Zagreb, 18 June–13 July 2015. Project website. About: Novi list, Tportal.hr, Kulturpunkt.hr, Novosti. [9]

🗐 Public Library, Zagreb: WHW & Multimedia Institute, 2015.

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  Public Library, Zagreb, 2015. Photo: Ivan Kuharić.

• Javna knjižnica / Public Library, exhibition and conference, Galerija Nova, Zagreb, 27 May–13 June 2015. With Aaaaarg, The Ignorant Schoolmaster and His Committees, K_O_K, Library Genesis, MayDay Rooms, Midnight Notes Collective, Monoskop, Praxis, Public Library / Memory of the World, Textz.com, UbuWeb, a.o. Organised by WHW and Multimedia Institute. About: Antonija Letinić (Kulturpunkt.hr). [10] [11] [12] [13]

• Free Libraries for Every Soul, hackathon, Impakt Festival, Utrecht, 2–3 November 2014.

Oscillating between the “legal” and “illegal”. Open, independent, and (digitally) networked structures of sharing books, films, music, art, knowledge, et cetera, have been established–always oscillating between the “legal” and “illegal”–at least since the mid-1990s. In the meantime, models of “legal commons” and “common properties” that wish to regulate and legalize ways of sharing things had not only been implemented as “alternative agreements” but also controversially discussed, as they still rely on the capitalist logics of property. The conference basically explores those projects and networks for sharing knowledge, which neither accept the increasingly strict regulations of the (increasingly privatized) official infrastructures and systems of education nor the new monopoles of knowledge (Google, Amazon, etc.).

Curating the archive / library. Of interest here are, besides open digital libraries, also artistic ways of dealing with the structures of the archive and of archiving. Furthermore the necessity and criteria of curating open-access-libraries and -collections such as UbuWeb, Monoskop, Aaaaarg.org, Archive.org or Library Genesis will be discussed.

Constructions of a universal knowledge. Another aspect of the conference concerns critical reflection of the grand narratives and projections of “universal knowledge,” “universal libraries,” and other “world projects.” Reaching from the public library conception of the seventeeth century to projects such as the “Mundaneum”–a Belgian utopia from the early twentieth century, which conceived a city that would bring together all knowledge of the world in one flexible classification system–to Google.

Regulations, classifications, hierarchies. Furthermore, the conference aims to discuss the regulations, classifications, hierarchies, and protocols inherent to the infrastructures of education and knowledge production: from the mechanisms and effects of indexing systems or academic curriculums to dualistic relationships such as teacher-scholar, amateur-expert, “server-client” . . . On the opposite side, alternative models such as The Public School will be presented.

„The Public School is a school with no curriculum. It is not accredited, it does not give out degrees, and it has no affiliation with the public school system. It is a framework that supports autodidactic activities, operating under the assumption that everything is in everything.

State responsibility. Besides developing open, decentralized, independent, and/or anarchistic infrastructures, we feel it is at the same time important to insist on the state/public’s responsibility of financing and maintaining access to education, knowledge, and art "for everybody" on a large scale. How could we, from this perspective, imagine future relationships between state-managed macro and self-managed micro structures of education and knowledge?

Something is always missing. At the same time, those “big machineries” of knowledge, discourse, and attention need to be constantly called into question by those structures that arise because there is a lack, because something is missing, and that give voice and visibility to the neglected and unexpected. For, above all, it is not only about the question of access to knowledge, but about how to create, articulate, and bring into play other, hidden, and/or suppressed knowledge. (Württembergsicher Kunstverein, 2014)

• Public Library. Rethinking the Infrastructures of Knowledge Production, Württembergsicher Kunstverein (WKV) & Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, 30 October–23 November 2014. An exhibition/laboratory/'scandromat' and a conference about today’s conditions of knowledge production: from the neoliberal politics of education and the monopolization of “intellectual property” to alternative critical and anarchistic ways of sharing and “borrowing” knowledge. With Aaaaarg, Eipcp, GeoCities Research Institute, Giving What You Don't Have, Herman's Library, Internet Archive, Library Genesis, Ljudmila, Marxists Internet Archive, Monoskop, Pirate Cinema, Postcapital Archive, Praxis, Public School, UbuWeb, a.o. Program. Video. Photos.

Just like mp3 in music, electronic publishing began as a non- or even anti-commercial subculture: with literary classics freely published by Project Gutenberg, with underground books and pamphlets such as the “Principia Discordia” and Abbie Hoffman’s “Steal this Book” circulating on electronic bulletin boards, computer hackers swapping “disk mags”. Long before the Amazon Kindle, ASCII e-books and e-zines were popular underground media, with their own minimalist aesthetics and radical politics. Since the 1990s, artists and media activists have entered this field as well, building up pirate libraries with electronic versions of classical art and critical theory books, and extending the concept of free software and peer-to-peer file sharing to publishing. What has been achieved in this culture, what is its status quo, and what can mainstream publishing learn from it? (Florian Cramer, 2014)

• Underground e-publishing, session at the conference Off the Press: Electronic Publishing in the Arts, WORM, Rotterdam, 23 May 2014. With Monoskop, Pad.ma, Public Library, hosted by Florian Cramer. Video: [14] [15] [16] [17].

• Hack the biblio! Construir bibliotecas publicas, workshop, Calafou, Vallbona d'Anoia (Barcelona), 17–21 April 2014. With bookcamping.cc, el lokal, el ateno enciclopedic llibertari, xarxa de biblioteques socials, and Memory of the World.

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  JSTOR Pirate Headquarters, Düsseldorf, 2014. Photo: Achim Kukulies.

• JSTOR Pirate Headquarters, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 5 April–10 August 2014. 250,000 pages of pirated JSTOR documents (a cache of papers from the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society made available via The Pirate Bay) were printed in tribute to suicided information activist Aaron Swartz. A project by Kenneth Goldsmith, part of the Smart New World exhibition. Catalogue. About: kg_ubu, Artforum, Yahoo.

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  Printing Out the Internet, Mexico City, 2013.

• Printing Out the Internet, exhibition, LABOR, Mexico City, 26 July–31 August 2013. "A crowdsourced project to literally print out the entire Internet." Over 20,000 people from around the world contributed ten tons of paper to the project. A project by Kenneth Goldsmith. Tumblr site. Wikipedia.

There are so many initiatives recently dealing with archiving of different artistic, cultural and historical materials, which are induced by the possibilities of digitization as a new round of 'actualization' and new spaces for dissemination of the material dealt with. The dominant framework of those initiatives is still institutional – by that, public/state institutions are employing contemporary tools in order to remain in their great narratives of 'history', 'heritage' and '(national) culture', to remain in control. However, we are more interested in initiatives which are invested in practices diverging from institutional and state strategies. Instead of conservation, we would like to think of 'live archives'; instead of nourishing canons, we would like to think of creation of 'history from bellow' as 'a counter-memory' – with all their possible implications.

Within that changed perspective on archives and libraries, we would like to think further: how to make conditions for breaking still authorial positions of 'a librarian' and 'an archivist', and of the ownership over the archived material? By sharing, would be the first answer, with its double-bind – as 'an openness of control'; or as its appropriation from the uncritical one.

Formation of the 'counter-memory' would imply observation of the past not in retrospective, therefore, it would mean observation of the past as more actual/recent then the present and more uncertain then the future (B. Buden). Then politics of archiving in terms of actualization of archived material would mean a saturation of politics, of an invention of politics contained in the archived material. Could un-archives and practices of un-archivist, un-librarian (as in 'everyone could be one...') be diverted from care&nourishing of the archived material which are employed in something called 'archiving science', towards different affectivity invested in it? (kuda.org, 2013)

• An Archive/Live Archive/UnArchive and Public Library, series of discussions, kuda.org and CK13 Youth Center, Novi Sad, 15–16 July 2013. With Monoskop, Mute, Public Library, UbuWeb. Video.

• Post-digital Publishing Workshop: Home Library, Transmediale, HKW, Berlin, 2 February 2013.

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  🗐 Tribuna, HAIP 2012 addendum, special issue on open access, Dec 2012.

• HAIP 2012: Public Library / Javna knjižnica, conference and exhibition hosted by Kiberpipa, Ljubljana, 28–30 November 2012. With Aaaaarg, Behemot, Centre for Labour Studies (Centar za radničke studije), Ignorant Schoolmaster and His Committees (Učitelj neznalica i njegovi komiteti), Internet Archive, Library under the canopy (Knjižnica pod krošnjami), Ljudmila, MaMa, Monoskop, Mute, Neural, Pad.ma, Post-media lab, Tribuna, Worker Punkers University (Delavsko punkerska univerza), a.o. Video.

• Libraries, Access to Knowledge, and Self-Learning: From the Library of Alexandria to aaaaarg.org, panel at the MobilityShifts summit, New York, 14 October 2011. [18]

• Properties of the Autonomous Archive, Max Mueller Bhavan Library, Mumbai, 7–8 January 2011. Video.

Developed around a near-10,000-item printed card catalogue that indexes the content of the AAAARG Web site, the AAAARG Library creates a temporary, participatory space for the free redistribution of textual material. The Library will exist alongside the paid economy of the Fair, offering an extra-institutional space that will develop through a symbiotic (rather than an oppositional) relationship to the systems of exchange that structure the Fair. During the course of the three day event, a librarian will be on staff in Fillip's project room (I01) to fulfill book requests using the material available on AAAARG. A computer and scanner will also be on location enabling patrons of the Library to share material with the communities of both the Book Fair and AAAARG. Exhibiting publishers are strongly encouraged to submit material to the Library and may do so at any time during the project. (Fillip, 2010)

• AAAARG Library, site-specific installation, in conjunction with the fifth annual NY Art Book Fair, MoMA PS1, 5–7 November 2010. Commissioned by Fillip (Vancouver). Announcement, [19].

• Processing the Archive: Towards a Collaborative Model of Knowledge Production?, session, part of the symposium Speak, Memory: On Archives and Other Strategies of (Re)activation of Cultural Memory, organised by Laura Carderera at Rawabet Theater, Cairo, 28–30 October 2010.

• There is nothing less passive than the act of fleeing..., roaming seminar organised by AAAARG / The Public School across Berlin, 4–18 July 2010. [20] [21]

• The Public School (Paris), series of seminars, Bétonsalon, Paris, September 2009–March 2011.

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"Intellectual Property is the oil of the 21st century" - this quote by Mark Getty, chairman of Getty Images, one of the world's largest Intellectual Proprietors, offers a unique perspective on the current conflicts around copyrights, patents and trademarks. ... With their campaign for "Digital Rights Management", the copyright industries attempt to simultaneously outlaw the Universal Computer, revoke the Internet and suspend the fundamental laws of information. (oil21.org, 2007)

• The Oil of the 21st Century. Perspectives on Intellectual Property, series of events held at Telegrafenamt, Tucholskystr. 6, Berlin, Wiederaufbau für Kreditanstalt, Mauerstr. 68, Berlin, Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå and Mumbai, 18 October–22 December 2007. A project by Bootlab, based on a concept by Partner gegen Berlin, produced in cooperation with Sarai, The Thing and Waag Society, and funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation. Website. Booklet. Video. Photos. 0xdb, "developed as part of the "Oil of the 21st Century" project, is a proposal for a new type of cultural database, build on top of file-sharing networks – and a practical intervention in the ongoing conflict between the protection of intellectual property and the exercise of fair use rights."

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The Hamburg Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Culture, presided by Jan Philipp Reemtsma, has just advanced science and culture to a whole new level: Sebastian Luetgert, the founder of textz.com, is facing a warrant of arrest and may go to jail if he fails to pay more than 2,300 euros in damages for the alleged copying of two essays by Theodor W. Adorno that the foundation claims as their "intellectual property". Reemtsma was kindly asked to settle, but refused. (textz.com, 2004)

• Copy Adorno, Go To Jail?, Textz.com, 24 February 2004.

♾

AAAAARG

AAAAARG (originally AAARG, the acronym of Artists, Architects, and Activists Reading Group) is an online text repository. It was created by the artist Sean Dockray in 2005 and serves as a library for The Public School, a framework supporting autodidact activities. Aaaaarg has grown into a community of researchers and enthusiasts from contemporary art, critical theory, philosophy, and related fields who maintain, catalog, annotate and run discussions relevant to their research interests. As of 2025, it is offline.

• 

  The Public School, Los Angeles, 2010.

About

• Careful: A Repertorium on Shadow Library Practice, eds. Dušan Barok, Marcell Mars, Tomislav Medak, and Nick Thurston, Basel: distro, Nov 2025, [134 pp].

• Olga Goriunova, "Uploading our Libraries: The Subjects of Art and Knowledge Commons", in Aesthetics of the Commons, eds. Cornelia Sollfrank, Felix Stalder and Shusha Niederberger, Zurich: diaphanes, Jan 2021, pp 41-61.

• Cornelia Sollfrank, "The Practice of Sharing Knowledge, Interview with Sean Dockray", Mar 2019, 28 min. Video. Conducted Oct 2017 at HEK, Zurich. Part of the Creating Commons project.

• Charles Stankievech, "Letter to the Superior Court of Quebec Regarding Arg.org", in Fantasies of the Library, eds. Anna-Sophie Springer and Etienne Turpin, MIT Press, 2016, pp 98-110.

• Danny Butt, Scott McQuire, Nikos Papastergiadis, "Platforms and Public Participation", Continuum, 2016, pp 1-10.

• Jonathan Basile, "Who's Afraid of AAARG?", Guernica, 25 Aug 2016.

• "aaaaarg lawsuit digest", Nettime list discussion, Jan 2016.

• Sean Dockray, "What is the Relationship between Institutions and Counter-Institutions?", Post Digital Cultures symposium, Lausanne, 5 Dec 2015. Video, 36 min.

• Sean Dockray, Lawrence Liang, "Sharing Instinct: An Annotation of the Social Contract Through Shadow Libraries", e-flux journal 56th Venice Biennale, 14 Aug 2015.

• Pelle Snickars, "Publikationshack", in Universitetet som medium, eds. Matts Lindström and Adam Wickberg Månsson, Stockholm: Mediehistoriskt arkiv, 2015, pp 9-46. (Swedish)

• Cornelia Sollfrank, "Expanded Appropriation", video interview with Sean Dockray including transcription and introduction, part of Giving What You Don't Have, 2013.

• Jodi Dean, Sean Dockray, Alessandro Ludovico, Pauline van Mourik, Broekman, Nicholas Thoburn and Dmitry Vilensky, "Materialities of Independent Publishing: A Conversation with AAAAARG, Chto Delat?, I Cite, Mute, and Neural", New Formations 78 (Aug 2013), pp 157-178.

• Sean Dockray, "Openings and Closings", in Contestations: Learning From Critical Experiments in Education, eds. Tim Ivison and Tom Vandeputte, Bedford Press, 2013. Commentary by Jacqueline Bell.

• "Partials That Can Circulate. Sean Dockray, Founder of Aaarg.org Interviewed by Charles Stankievitch", in Ex Libris: Commonplace Books, Berlin: K. Verlag, 2013, pp 1-2. Conducted via email in Jul/Aug 2013. [22]

• [Federico Campagna], "Interview with AAAAARG.org", in We Have Our Own Concept of Time and Motion, eds. Auto Italia, 2011, pp 17-18. [23]

• Jeff Khonsary, "Browsing the AAAARG Library", Fillip 13, Spring 2011.

• Matthew Fuller, "In the Paradise of Too Many Books: An Interview with Sean Dockray", Mute, London, 4 May 2011.

• Marcus Boon, "Uploading My Book to AAAAARG.ORG", In Praise of Copying blog, 15 Oct 2010.

• Randall Szott, "Sean Dockray Interview", 127 Prince, 4 Oct 2010.

• Vivian Ziherl, "The Future And The Public School. Interview", un. Magazine 4:2, 2010, pp 22-26, PDF.

• Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu, "The AAAARG.org Discussion of the Macmillan Threat", Mitochondrial Vertigo blog, Apr 2010.

• Sean Dockray, Matteo Pasquinelli, Jason Smith and Caleb Waldorf (The Public School Los Angeles), "There is Nothing Less Passive Than the Act of Fleeing", ...ment 1, 2010, PDF.

• Sean Dockray, "The Scan and the Export", Fillip 12: "Critical Forms of Publicness", 2010, pp 98-111.

• Morgan Currie, "Small is Beautiful: a discussion with AAAARG architect Sean Dockray", Masters of Media blog, University of Amsterdam, 5 Jan 2010.

• Janneke Adema, "Scanners, collectors and aggregators. On the ‘underground movement’ of (pirated) theory text sharing", Open Reflections blog, Sep 2009.

• Julian Myers, Sean Dockray, "Four Dialogues 2: On AAAARG", Open Space blog, San Francisco: SFMOMA, 26 Aug 2009.

• David Elliott, "Interview with Sean Dockray / The Public School", c.May 2009.

Links

Website. The Public School meetings archive, 2009-2016. Memory of the World repertorium. Wikipedia-DE.

♾

Monoskop

Monoskop is an independent web-based educational resource and research platform for arts, culture and humanities founded in 2004. Monoskop features wiki pages with multilingual genealogical bibliographies of contemporary themes and movements in art, culture, and society such as Fediverse, technofeminism, decolonial aesthetics, the Anthropocene, community radio, free software, artists' publishing, performance, sound art and experimental film and video, accompanied by personal bio-bibliographical profiles of their exponents. Many of the titles in the bibliographies are linked to electronic versions of publications made available on Monoskop or other free and libre libraries.

• 

About

• Careful: A Repertorium on Shadow Library Practice, eds. Dušan Barok, Marcell Mars, Tomislav Medak, and Nick Thurston, Basel: distro, Nov 2025, [134 pp].

• Carolina Valente Pinto, a.o., ".expub: Exploring Expanded Publishing: Dušan Barok", eds. Tommaso Campagna, Marta Ceccarelli, and Carolina Valente Pinto, Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, Jun 2025, PDF.

• 

• "Bibliografi, kronologi, tidslinje, katalog, vegg, datasett, historie, minne, etnografi. Dušan Barok i samtale med Karin Nygård og Ellef Prestsæter", in Kunsten å sirkulere: en antologi om kunstnerisk publisering, eds. Lotte Grønneberg, Karin Nygård, Elin Maria Olaussen, and Karen Christine Tandberg, Oslo: Torpedo, Nov 2024. (Norwegian)

• 

• Nick Thurston, "In Solidarity and From Curiosity", in Ubu@50 – 50 Ubus: Everything Is Temporary, eds. Marcell Mars and Tomislav Medak, Zagreb: Multimedia Institute, May 2024. Conversation with Marcell Mars, Tomislav Medak and Dušan Barok.

• Benoît Crucifix, "(CoCo): Conceptual Comics and Online Archives", in Ilan Manouach in Review: Critical Approaches to his Conceptual Comics, ed. Pedro Moura, Routledge, Sep 2023, pp 189-203. [24] [25]

• 

• Shusha Niederberger, "Radical Care – Shadow Libraries und die Imagination anderer Institutionen", Fabrikzeitung: "Der radikale Katalog", eds. Lucie Kolb and Eva Weinmayr, Zürich: Rote Fabrik, Dec 2021. (German)

• Mariabruna Fabrizi, Fosco Lucarelli, "Monoskop, 2004-", in Database, Network, Interface: The Architecture of Information, Paris: Caryatide, and Lausanne: Archizoom (EPFL), 2021, p 157. Exh. catalogue. Distributor. Exhibition. [26]

• 

• Olga Goriunova, "Uploading our Libraries: The Subjects of Art and Knowledge Commons", in Aesthetics of the Commons, eds. Cornelia Sollfrank, Felix Stalder and Shusha Niederberger, Zurich: diaphanes, Jan 2021, pp 41-61.

• Kenneth Goldsmith, "Monoskop", in Goldsmith, Duchamp Is My Lawyer: The Polemics, Pragmatics, and Poetics of UbuWeb, New York: Columbia University Press, Jul 2020, pp 123-126.

• Roberto Cruz Arzabal, "La piratería como forma imposible: circulación y estratificación de la teoría contemporánea", in Exclusión y deriva: dinámicas fronterizas de la digitalidad, eds. Johanna C. Ángel Reyes and Joseba Buj, Mexico City: Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México, Jan 2020, pp 163-186. (Spanish)

• 

• Adéla Kudlová, "Dělat odvážná rozhodnutí. Rozhovor s Dušanem Barokem", Iluminace 31:4, Prague: Národní filmový archiv, 2019, pp 85-89. [27] [28] (Czech)

• 

• XPUB, "Interview with Dušan Barok", in The Library Is Open, Rotterdam: Piet Zwart Institute (XPUB Special Issue 09), Jul 2019, pp 70-73. [29]

• Felix Stalder, Cornelia Sollfrank, "From Notepad to Cultural Resource. The Aesthetics of Crosslinking at Monoskop, Interview with Dušan Barok", Mar 2019, 27 min. Video. Transcript. Conducted Oct 2017 at HEK, Zurich. Part of the Creating Commons project.

• 

• Nanna Bonde Thylstrup, "Monoskop", in Thylstrup, The Politics of Mass Digitization, MIT Press, 2018, pp 89-94, n161-162, HTML.

• Nina Vidovencová, Digitálny upgrade v slovenskom vizuálnom umení, Brno: Masarykova univerzita, 2018, p 68. Master's thesis. [30] (Slovak)

• Vanessa Kowalski, "Monoskop", in Kowalski, On Curating, Online: Buying Time in the Middle of Nowhere, Helsinki: Aalto University, 2018, pp 129-137. Case study in Master's Thesis in Curating, Managing, and Mediating Art. [31]

• William Blueher, "Monoskop", Art Libraries Society of North America, Oct 2017. Review.

• 

• Annet Dekker, "Copying as a Way to Start Something New. Annet Dekker in Conversation with Dušan Barok About Monoskop", in Lost and Living (in) Archives, ed. Annet Dekker, Amsterdam: Valiz, 2017. Conducted May-Jun 2016. [32]

• 

• Davide Giorgetta, Valerio Nicoletti, "They are Not Yet Books. Conversation with Dušan Barok" / "Non sono ancora libri. Conversazione con Dušan Barok", Progetto grafico 28: "Publishing", eds. Maria Rosaria Digregorio, Silvio Lorusso, Silvia Sfligiotti, and Stefano Vittori, Milan: AIAP, Nov 2015, pp 58-69, HTML. Conducted Mar 2015. [33] [34] (English)/(Italian)

• 

• McKenzie Wark, "Metadata Punk", in Javna knjižnica / Public Library, eds. Tomislav Medak, Marcell Mars, and WHW, Zagreb: WHW & Multimedia Institute, 2015, pp 111-117.
  • "Metapodatkovni punk", trans. Dušanka Profeta, in Javna knjižnica / Public Library, eds. Tomislav Medak, Marcell Mars, and WHW, Zagreb: WHW & Multimedia Institute, 2015, pp 41-47, PDF. (Croatian)

• 

• Tomislav Medak, "The Future After the Library. UbuWeb and Monoskop's Radical Gestures", in Javna knjižnica / Public Library, eds. Tomislav Medak, Marcell Mars, and WHW, Zagreb: WHW & Multimedia Institute, 2015, pp 121-137.
  • "Budućnosti iz knjižnice. Radikalne geste UbuWeba i Monoskopa", in Javna knjižnica / Public Library, eds. Tomislav Medak, Marcell Mars, and WHW, Zagreb: WHW & Multimedia Institute, 2015, pp 51-66, PDF. (Croatian)

• Lenka Rišková, "Monoskop.org", in Rišková, Kultúra v sieti.Nezávislé iniciatívy v umení a kultúre nových médií v Bratislave po roku 2000, Brno: Masarykova univerzita, 2015, pp 37-39 & 50-51. Master's thesis. [35] (Slovak)

• Michal Rehúš, "Softvér je tiež literatúrou", Kloaka 5:3, Bratislava: Literis, 2014, pp 29-36. Interview conducted Sep-Dec 2014. (Slovak)

• Sarah Hamerman, "Cataloging Plunder: Thoughts on the Digital Text-Sharing Underground", LIS Theory blog, 20 Nov 2014; upd. as Pirate Libraries and the Fight for Open Information", The Media 61: The Immaterial Digital Labor Issue, 5 Sep 2015.

• Barbora Linková, "Monoskop", ch. 6.3 in Linková, Archivy a sbírky. Od uměleckého archivu k internetové databázi, Brno: Masaryk University, 2014, pp 61-65. Master's thesis. (Czech)

• Michal Murin, "Share & Go: Dušan Barok", Enter 16, Košice: Dive Buki, Autumn 2014, pp 84-87. Interview conducted May-Jun 2013. (Slovak) [36]

• Barbora Linková, "Monoskop, e-mailové interview s Dušanem Barokem", Mar 2014. Conducted for the author's dissertation. (Czech)+(Slovak)

• Alessandro Ludovico, "Die dehnbare Bibliothek. Bücherdigitalisierung und daran anknüpfende Kunstprojekte", Springerin 3, Vienna, Aug 2013. (German)
  • "The Liquid Library", Eurozine, 26 Aug 2013.

• "Monoskop Log de Dušan Barok", Culture Mobile, 29 Apr 2013. (French)

• Alessandro Ludovico, "Dušan Barok, Interview", Neural 44: Special Issue on Post-Digital Print (2013), pp 10-11. Conducted Jan 2013.

• "Monoskop v sieti: Rozhovor Michala Murina s Dušanom Barokom", Profil 4 (2012), pp 92-105. Interview conducted Jul-Aug 2012. [37] (Slovak)

• Robert Bobnič, Jurij Smrke, Jasmina Šepetavc, "Monoskop", Tribuna, December 2012, pp 16-17. Interview conducted Nov 2012 during HAIP festival in Ljubljana. (Slovenian)

• Dan Barrow, "Unofficial Channels: Monoskop", The Wire, Nov 2012.

• Alina Matějová, "Rozhovor s Dušanem Barokem", Remake blog, Apr 2012. (Slovak)

• Janneke Adema, "Scanners, collectors and aggregators. On the ‘underground movement’ of (pirated) theory text sharing", Open Reflections blog, Sep 2009.

• Eva Krátká, "Monoskop: Collaborative Research on Media Art", Flash Art CZ/SK 9, 2008, HTML. (Czech)

• Oliver Rehák, "Monoskop nových médií", 3/4 21-22, Bratislava: Atrakt Art, 2007. (Slovak)

• Slávo Krekovič, "DIY-publishing dot sk", in The Mag.net Reader: Experiences in Electronic Cultural Publishing, eds. Miren Eraso, Alexandro Ludovico and Slávo Krekovič, Arteleku-Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa, 2006, pp 24-35.

Links

Website. Monoskop Log. Mastodon. Memory of the World repertorium. Wikipedia-SK.

♾

Public Library / Memory of the World

Public Library / Memory of the World is a network of interconnected shadow libraries, each maintained locally and independently from the others. It is modelled after the concept of the public library, extended to the digital realm: with books ready to be shared, meticulously cataloged, everyone is a librarian. When everyone is librarian, library is everywhere.

Public Library / Memory of the World was initiated in 2012 upon the invitation of Kiberpipa to curate their biannual HAIP festival in Ljubljana. Conceived at a moment where public libraries came under threat of austerity measures and where the networked infrastructures of sharing came under an increased threat of closing, it was aimed at strengthening and connecting those infrastructures and provoking debates that addressed the imposed and implicit territorial, socio-economic and legal barriers to the universal access to knowledge. Since this initial outing, Public Library continued to be developed and presented a.o. in dedicated exhibitions at Württembergischer Kunstverein in Stuttgart, Galerija Nova under What, How & for Whom / WHW in Zagreb, Galerija SULUV under Kuda.org in Novi Sad, in collective exhibitions Dear Art at the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova in Ljubljana and Really Useful Knowledge in the Museum Reina Sofia in Madrid, in hackathons at Impakt festival in Utrecht, in Post-Digital Publishing workshop at Transmediale in Berlin, in Archive/Anarchive/Public Library workshop at Kuda.org in Novi Sad, in the residencies at Constant in Brussels, Calafou in Barcelona, MayDay Rooms in London and Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart. (2019)

• 

About

• Careful: A Repertorium on Shadow Library Practice, eds. Dušan Barok, Marcell Mars, Tomislav Medak, and Nick Thurston, Basel: distro, Nov 2025, [134 pp].

• Tomislav Medak, Marcell Mars, "Public Library and the Return of the Repressed Memory of the World", in Stories and Threads: Perspectives on Art Archives, eds. Sara Buraya Boned, Jennifer Fitzgibbon, and Sezin Romi, L'Internationale, 2022, pp 74-89. [38]

• Kenneth Goldsmith, "Memory of the World / Public Library", in Goldsmith, Duchamp Is My Lawyer: The Polemics, Pragmatics, and Poetics of UbuWeb, New York: Columbia University Press, Jul 2020, pp 116-123.

• Marcell Mars, Tomislav Medak, "System of a Takedown: Control and De-commodification in the Circuits of Academic Publishing", in Andrew Lison, et al., Archives, Lüneburg: meson.press, and University of Minnesota Press, Aug 2019, pp 47-68.

• Marcell Mars, Tomislav Medak, "Against Innovation: Compromised Institutional Agency and Acts of Custodianship", Ephemera 19(2): "Repair Matters", May 2019, pp 345-368, PDF.

• Neda Atanasoski, Kalindi Vora, "Sharing, Collaboration, and the Commons in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: The Appropriative Techniques of Technoliberal Capitalism", ch 2 in Atanasoski, Vora, Surrogate Humanity: Race, Robots, and the Politics of Technological Futures, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, Mar 2019, pp 54-86. On Public Library.

• 

• Guerrilla Open Access, ed. Memory of the World, Coventry: Post Office Press, Rope Press, and Memory of the World, 2018, 34 pp. Texts by Memory of the World, Christopher Kelty, Balázs Bodó, and Laurie Allen.

• Felix Stalder, "Caring for the Public Library, Interview with Marcell Mars & Tomislav Medak", video, Creating Commons, Oct 2017.

• Petar Jandrić, Ana Kuzmanić, "Knowledge Commons and Activist Pedagogies: From Idealist Positions to Collective Actions: Conversation with Marcell Mars and Tomislav Medak", in Jandrić, Learning in the Age of Digital Reason, Rotterdam: Sense, 2017, pp 243-269.

• "Happy birthday, Ubu.com!", Custodians.online, 30 Nov 2016; posted on Nettime, 30 Nov 2016.

• Tomislav Medak, Marcell Mars, "Amateur Librarian - A Course in Critical Pedagogy", in Mondothèque: A Radiated Book / Un livre irradiant / Een irradiërend boek, Brussels: Constant, Sep 2016, pp 48-56, PDF. Zotero.
  • "Bibliothécaire amateur - un cours de pédagogie critique", in Mondothèque: A Radiated Book / Un livre irradiant / Een irradiërend boek, Brussels: Constant, Sep 2016, pp 57-65, PDF. (French)

• Marcell Mars, "Memory of the World", IZK Institute for Contemporary Art, Graz, 12 May 2016, 40 min. Video; invited talk as part of the annual 'Graz Architecture Lectures'. [39]

• 

• Javna knjižnica / Public Library, eds. Tomislav Medak, Marcell Mars, and WHW, Zagreb: WHW & Multimedia Institute, 2015, 144 pp. Texts by McKenzie Wark, Tomislav Medak, Marcell Mars, Manar Zarroug, and Paul Otlet. (English)/(Croatian)

• 

• "In solidarity with Library Genesis and Sci-Hub", Custodians.online, 30 Nov 2015. Open letter.
  • Translations.

• Tomislav Medak, Dubravka Sekulic, with An Mertens, Book Scanning & Post-Processing Manual Based on Public Library Overhead Scanner, Zagreb: Public Library & Multimedia Institute, [Dec 2014], 22 pp.

• Public Library: Rethinking the Infrastructures of Knowledge Production, Stuttgart, 30 Oct-23 Nov 2014. Video recordings from the conference held at Württembergsicher Kunstverein (WKV) & Akademie Schloss Solitude.

• Marcell Mars, Klemo Vladimir, "Download & How to: Calibre & let's share books", Memory of the World, 28 Oct 2014.

• Marcell Mars, "Why and How to Be(come) an Amateur Librarian", Memory of the World blog, 28 Oct 2014.

• Marcell Mars, "Public Library", in Really Useful Knowledge, Barcelona: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MACBA), 2014, pp 163-168; repr. as Marcell Mars, Manar Zarroug, Tomislav Medak, "Public Library (An Essay)", Memory of the World blog, 27 Oct 2014; repr. in Javna knjižnica / Public Library, eds. Tomislav Medak, Marcell Mars, and WHW, Zagreb: WHW & Multimedia Institute, 2015, pp 75-85; reposted on Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft: Open-Media-Studies-Blog, 17 Dec 2018. On the idea of public library.
  • "Javna knjižnica (Esej)", trans. Una Bauer, in Javna knjižnica / Public Library, eds. Tomislav Medak, Marcell Mars, and WHW, Zagreb: WHW & Multimedia Institute, 2015, pp 7-17. (Croatian)

• David Garcia, "Books as "a gateway drug"- Interview with marcel Mars", new tactical research, 14 Feb 2014; reposted, nettime, 27 Feb 2014.

• An Archive/Live Archive/UnArchive and Public Library, Novi Sad, 15-16 Jul 2013. Video recordings of talks held at kuda and CK13 Youth Center.

• Lazara Marinkovic, "CTM.13 – Marcell Mars, The Golden Age Interview", Bturn, May 2013.

• From Digital to Urban Commons - Alex Hache and Marcell Mars, video, Commoning the City conference, Architecture Museum, Stockholm, Apr 2013.

• Alessandro Ludovico, "Marcell Mars, Interview", Neural 44: "Post-Digital Print", Bari, Jan 2013, pp 6-8.

• Tribuna: "HAIP festival & Tribuna: Hack-Act-Interact-Progress", Ljubljana: Student Organisation of the University of Ljubljana, Dec 2012, 8 pp. A section in the student monthly, based on the HAIP 2012: Public Library / Javna knjižnica festival. Texts by Kaja Kraner, Tina Dolinšek, and interviews with Marcell Mars and Dušan Barok. (Slovenian)

• HAIP 2012: Public Library / Javna knjižnica, Ljubljana, 28-30 Nov 2012. Video recordings of talks held at Kiberpipa.

• Voja Antonić, "Our Beloved Bookscanner", Memory of the World, 28 Oct 2012.

Links

Website. Libraries: Memory of the World, Herman's Library, K_O_K, Midnight Notes, Praxis, Printing Out the Internet. YouTube channel. Repertorium.

♾

Textz.com

Textz.com is a warez database for texts. Its first iteration was run by Sebastian Lütgert/ROLUX from 2001 with the slogan »we are the & in copy & paste«. The website has been relaunched on 22 March 2020.

In the earlier version, one could find text with and without copyright, fictional and theoretical texts, manifestos, articles and song lyrics. Texts by Theodor W. Adorno side by side with texts by the autonome a.f.r.i.k.a.-Gruppe, Douglas Adams appeared next to Klaus Theweleit and Kathy Acker. The texts originated from various sources. They were submitted by authors themselves, supplied to the textz.com database by various online collaborators as freely circulating texts on the Net, or were scanned in from printed media page by page, processed via a text recognition program, and transformed into ASCII files.

• 

About

• Careful: A Repertorium on Shadow Library Practice, eds. Dušan Barok, Marcell Mars, Tomislav Medak, and Nick Thurston, Basel: distro, Nov 2025, [134 pp].

• Daniel Snelson, "Textwarez: The Executable Files of Textz.com", ch 1 in Snelson, Variable Format: Media Poetics and the Little Database (PhD thesis), University of Pennsylvania, 2015, pp 25-58; upd. as "Textwarez: The Executable Files of Textz.com", ch. 1 in Snelson, The Little Database: A Poetics of Media Formats, Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota University Press, 2025. Publisher. [40]

• Janneke Adema, "Scanners, collectors and aggregators. On the ‘underground movement’ of (pirated) theory text sharing", Open Reflections blog, Sep 2009.

• "The Society of Intellectual Property", textz.com, 2005.

• Inke Arns, "Read_me, run_me, execute_me. Code als ausführbarer Text: Softwarekunst und ihr Fokus auf Programmcodes als performative Texte", MedienKunstNetz, 2004. (German)
  • "Read_me, run_me, execute_me: Code as Executable Text: Software Art and its Focus on Program Code as Performative Text", trans. Donald Kiraly, MediaArtNet, 2004.
  • "Read_Me, Run_Me, Execute_Me: Malaise dans le logiciel ou 'C’est la performativité du code, idiot!'", in Art ++, ed. David-Olivier Lartigaud, Orléans: HYX, 2011, pp 143ff. (French)

• Holger Kube Ventura, Sebastian Lütgert, "Copyright Madness", Mute 1:28, 13 July 2004.

• "Copy Adorno, Go To Jail? Textz.com Doesn't Think So", 2004. Nettime, Rhizome.

• A.S.Ambulanzen, "The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction", textz.com, 2004; repr., Makeworlds 4, 2004.

• Rachel Greene, "Open Books", Artforum 41:10, Summer 2003, p 52, JPG.

• Vali Djordjevic, "Nützliche Tools für den Netzintellektuellen. Minordomo und textz.com aus dem Hause Rolux" [Useful tools for intellectual Web users. Minordomo and textz.com by Rolux], Telepolis, 23 July 2001.

• a.s.ambulanzen, "napster was only the beginning. an introduction to http://textz.com", Rohrpost, 15 March 2001.

Links

Website. pngreader, 2003. walser.php, 2002. Memory of the World repertorium. MediaArtNet.

♾

UbuWeb

UbuWeb is the most significant and largest online archive of avant-garde art; it was initiated and is led by conceptual artist Kenneth Goldsmith. UbuWeb has grown into a relevant and recognized critical institution of contemporary art. Artists want to see their work in its catalog and thus agree to a relationship with UbuWeb that has no formal contractual obligations. [41]

• 

About

• Careful: A Repertorium on Shadow Library Practice, eds. Dušan Barok, Marcell Mars, Tomislav Medak, and Nick Thurston, Basel: distro, Nov 2025, [134 pp].

• Jacopo Rasmi, "Platforms of Curiosities: Weird Ways of Publishing Movies", in The Politics of Curiosity: Alternatives to the Attention Economy, eds. Enrico Campo and Yves Citton, London: Routledge, 2024. [42]

• 

• Ubu@50 – 50 Ubus: Everything Is Temporary, eds. Marcell Mars and Tomislav Medak, Zagreb: Multimedia Institute, May 2024. Collectively written hyperlinked publication.

• Ubu@50 — 50 Ubus: A Virtual Conference, eds. Marcell Mars and Tomislav Medak, Zagreb: Multimedia Institute, Apr 2024. Collection of video interviews.

• Benoît Crucifix, "(CoCo): Conceptual Comics and Online Archives", in Ilan Manouach in Review: Critical Approaches to his Conceptual Comics, ed. Pedro Moura, Routledge, Sep 2023, pp 189-203. [43] [44]

• Sandra Fauconnier, "Challenges in the Creation, Perception and Distribution of Documentation", in Documentation as Art: Expanded Digital Practices, eds. Annet Dekker and Gabriella Giannachi, Routledge, Jan 2023, pp 75-86.

• Gill Partington, "Kontext ist alles. Kenneth Goldsmith und UbuWeb", Merkur 866, Jul 2021, pp 59-66. [45] (German)

• Olga Goriunova, "Uploading our Libraries: The Subjects of Art and Knowledge Commons", in Aesthetics of the Commons, eds. Cornelia Sollfrank, Felix Stalder and Shusha Niederberger, Zurich: diaphanes, Jan 2021, pp 41-61.

• 

• Kenneth Goldsmith, Duchamp Is My Lawyer: The Polemics, Pragmatics, and Poetics of UbuWeb, New York: Columbia University Press, Jul 2020, x+318 pp. [46]
  • "Le manifeste polémique d’UbuWeb", Multitudes 76, trans. Cristiano de Sá Fagundes, 2019, pp 155-167. Trans. of first chapter. [47] (French)

• Michael Nardone, "Poetics in a Networked Digital Milieu", College Literature 47:1, Winter 2020, pp 248-258.
  • "Poétique des réseaux", trans. Sébastien McLaughlin, Sens Public, Jun 2021. (French)

• Kenneth Goldsmith, "UbuWeb: An Accidental Archive", OnCurating 44: "Curating Contem­porary Music", Jan 2020.

• Kenneth Goldsmith, "UbuWeb", Prague: Artyčok/Academy of Fine Arts, 28 Jan 2019, 56 min. Video. Audio. Talk on UbuWeb and Custodians Online. Part of TBA21's Class of Interpretation.

• Cornelia Sollfrank, "The Surplus of Copying: How Shadow Libraries and Pirate Archives Contribute to the Creation of Cultural Memory and the Commons", originalcopy, Nov 2018. [48]

• Michael Nardone, "UbuWeb", ch. 2 in Nardone, Of the Repository: Poetics in a Networked Digital Milieu, Montreal: Concordia University, 2018, pp 104-175. PhD thesis.

• Nanna Bonde Thylstrup, "UbuWeb", in Thylstrup, The Politics of Mass Digitization, MIT Press, 2018, pp 94-97, n162, HTML.

• Björn Ekström, "Publiceringsvariationer: en jämförelse mellan DigitaltMuseum och UbuWeb", Tidskrift för ABM 2:1, Uppsala, 2017, pp 4-14. (Swedish)

• Jacob Brogan, "The Website That Collects the Forgotten and the Unfamiliar", Slate, 23 Dec 2016.

• 

• "Happy birthday, Ubu.com!", Custodians.online, 30 Nov 2016.

• Nick Thurston, "Happy Birthday Ubu. Twenty years of sharing", Frieze, 26 Oct 2016.

• Cornelia Sollfrank, "Nothing New Needs to be Created: Kenneth Goldsmith’s Claim to Uncreativity", in No Internet – No Art. A Lunch Byte Anthology, ed. Melanie Bühler, Eindhoven: Onomatopee, 2015, pp 40-50.

• Daniel Snelson, "'Ever the Avant-Garde of the Avant-Garde till Heaven and After': UbuWeb from Film to Database", ch. 4 in Snelson, Variable Format: Media Poetics and the Little Database (PhD thesis), University of Pennsylvania, 2015, pp 133-179; upd. as "Dropping the Frame: From Film to Database", ch. 4 in Snelson, The Little Database: A Poetics of Media Formats, Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota University Press, 2025. Publisher. [49]

• Agnès Peller, "UbuWeb de Kenneth Goldsmith : une archive issue du web de documents", Synoptique 4:1, Summer 2015, pp 151-164. [50] (French)

• Alexeev Vladimir, "UbuWeb - das Archiv der Avantgarde schlechthin", Dada, Merz & Co., Jul 2015. (German)

• Tomislav Medak, "The Future After the Library. UbuWeb and Monoskop's Radical Gestures", in Javna knjižnica / Public Library, eds. Tomislav Medak, Marcell Mars, and WHW, Zagreb: WHW & Multimedia Institute, 2015, pp 121-137.
  • "Budućnosti iz knjižnice. Radikalne geste UbuWeba i Monoskopa", in Javna knjižnica / Public Library, eds. Tomislav Medak, Marcell Mars, and WHW, Zagreb: WHW & Multimedia Institute, 2015, pp 51-66. (Croatian)

• McKenzie Wark, "Metadata Punk", in Javna knjižnica / Public Library, eds. Tomislav Medak, Marcell Mars, and WHW, Zagreb: WHW & Multimedia Institute, 2015, pp 111-117.
  • "Metapodatkovni punk", trans. Dušanka Profeta, in Javna knjižnica / Public Library, eds. Tomislav Medak, Marcell Mars, and WHW, Zagreb: WHW & Multimedia Institute, 2015, pp 41-47. (Croatian)

• Nick Collins, "The UbuWeb Electronic Music Corpus: An MIR investigation of a historical database", Organised Sound 20:1, Apr 2015, pp 122-134. [51]

• Deanna Fong, "Spoken Word: Audio-Textual Relations in UbuWeb, PennSound and SpokenWeb", Amodern 4, Mar 2015.

• Blake Butler, "Ubu Publishes the Unpublishable", VICE, 26 Feb 2015.

• 

  UbuWeb, 2014

• Rodrigo José Brasil Silva, "A experiência UbuWeb: arte e arquivo na internet", Texto Digital 10:2, Dec 2014. (Brazilian Portuguese)

• Sarah Hamerman, "Cataloging Plunder: Thoughts on the Digital Text-Sharing Underground", LIS Theory blog, 20 Nov 2014; upd. as Pirate Libraries and the Fight for Open Information", The Media 61: The Immaterial Digital Labor Issue, 5 Sep 2015.

• Marcell Mars, Manar Zarroug, Tomislav Medak, "Public Library (An Essay)", Memory of the World blog, 27 Oct 2014; printed in Javna knjižnica / Public Library, eds. Tomislav Medak, Marcell Mars, and WHW, Zagreb: WHW & Multimedia Institute, 2015, pp 75-85; reposted on Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft: Open-Media-Studies-Blog, 17 Dec 2018. On the idea of public library.
  • "Javna knjižnica (Esej)", trans. Una Bauer, in Javna knjižnica / Public Library, eds. Tomislav Medak, Marcell Mars, and WHW, Zagreb: WHW & Multimedia Institute, 2015, pp 7-17. (Croatian)

• Kenneth Goldsmith, "Copyright Is Over – If You Want It (Guest Post)", Billboard, 15 Jul 2014.

• Cat Hope, John Ryan, "UbuWeb and the Repository of the Avant-Garde", in Digital Arts: An Introduction to New Media, Bloomsbury, Jun 2014, pp 189-190.

• Kenneth Goldsmith, "Robin Hood of the Avant-Garde", in Dynamic Fair Dealing: Creating Canadian Culture Online, eds. Rosemary J. Coombe, et al., Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014, pp 251-260. [52]

• Agnès Peller, "Ubuweb de Kenneth Goldsmith: un geste artistique dans les humanités numériques", Paris: Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2013. Master's thesis.
  • Kenneth Goldsmith's UbuWeb. An Artist's Contribution to the Digital Humanities, trans. Francesca Simkin, Paris: University of Paris 3-Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2015, 108 pp. Revised version.

• Sean Dockray, "Kenneth Goldsmith, et al., UbuWeb", Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 71:3, Sep 2012, pp 429-430.

• Jean-Jacques Larrochelle, "Ubu, roi des sons", Le Monde, 18 Jul 2012. (French)

• "Memorabilia. Collecting Sounds with... Kenneth Goldsmith, Radio Web MACBA, 12 Jul 2012, 48 min. Audio.

• Kenneth Goldsmith, "Paradise Now: UbuWeb's World Without Copyright", 17 Mar 2012. Keynote speech given at Matadero Madrid. (English), (Spanish)

• Ekkehard Knörer, "Trainingseffekte. Arbeiten mit YouTube und UbuWeb", Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft 3(2): "Empirie", 2011, pp 163-166. (German)

• Ashley M. Gibson, "From Ant Farm to UbuWeb: Distribution and Access in Artists’ Video from the 1960s to the Present", Eugene, OR: University of Oregon, Jun 2011, viii+87 pp. Master's thesis.

• Kenneth Goldsmith, "UbuWeb at 15 Years: An Overview", Poetry Foundation, 26 Apr 2011; version on UbuWeb, 2011.

• Miguel Conde, "A vanguarda da pilhagem. No maior site de arte experimental na web, a ordem é roubar primeiro e resolver depois", O Globo, Rio de Janiero, 26 Mar 2011, pp 1-2. (Brazilian Portuguese)

• Kenneth Goldsmith, "About UbuWeb", UbuWeb, 2011.

• "Son(i)a #116: Kenneth Goldsmith", Radio Web MACBA, 16 Dec 2010, 18 min. Audio.

• Kenneth Goldsmith, "If We Had To Ask for Permission, We Wouldn't Exist: An Open Letter to the Frameworks Community", 18 Oct 2010.

• Miloš Vojtěchovský, "Jánošík online archivů. UbuWeb – autorské právo a poetická (an)architektura", A2 12, Prague, Jun 2010. [53] (Czech)

• Danny Birchall, "The Avant-Garde Archive Online", Film Quarterly 63:1, Autumn 2009, pp 12-14, PDF. [54]

• "UbuWeb", Cargo 3, Sep 2009, p 74. Interview. [55] (German)
  • "UbuWeb", cargo-film.de, n.d.

• Janneke Adema, "Scanners, collectors and aggregators. On the ‘underground movement’ of (pirated) theory text sharing", Open Reflections blog, Sep 2009.

• Ned Beauman, "Web Intellectual: Meet the American poet bringing highbrow literature to the masses", Dazed and Confused, Sep 2009, HTML.

• "Kenneth Goldsmith's UbuWeb", KQED, 20 Mar 2009.

• Street Poets & Visionaries: Selections from the Ubuweb Collection, Toronto: Mercer Union, 2009, 8 pp. Exh. booklet. Darren Wershler's essay, [56]. Photos. Reviews: Taylor (Globe & Mail), Sutton (c mag). Previously shown at Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery, New York, 2006. Review: Cotter (NYT), Church (Art on Paper).

• Lindesay Irvine, "Site of the week: UbuWeb", The Guardian, 29 Oct 2008.

• Kenneth Goldsmith, "If We Had to Ask Permission, We Wouldn't Exist: A Brief Account of UbuWeb", Parkett 82, 2008, pp 6-10. [57]
  • "Müssten wir um Erlaubnis bitten, gäbe es uns nicht mehr UbuWeb - eine kurze Darstellung", trans. Wolfgang Himmelberg, Parkett 82, 2008, pp 11-15. (German)

• Discussion about UbuWeb on the Frameworks list, 9-20 Jun 2008.

• Damon Krukowski, "Free Verses: Kenneth Goldsmith and UbuWeb", Artforum 46:7, Mar 2008, p 129, HTML.

• Jean-Marc Manach, "Au royaume d’UbuWeb, trésors sonores et visuels d’avant-garde", Le Monde, 18 Oct 2007. (French)

• Paul Fileri, "Site Specifics: UbuWeb", Film Comment 43:5, New York, Sep/Oct 2007, p 10. [58]

• John Jourden, "UbuWeb Vu: Kenneth Goldsmith", Archinect, 26 Jun 2007. Interview.

• June Torbati, "UbuWeb offers uber obscure", Yale Daily News, 13 Apr 2007.

• David Klimeš, "Kolekce umělecké avantgardy", Respekt, 25 Mar 2007. (Czech)

• Kenneth Goldsmith, "If It Doesn't Exist on the Internet, It Doesn't Exist", Harriet Blog, 16 Mar 2007.

• Thomas Bécard, "Des pièces rares du cinéma contestataire mondial accessibles à tous", Télérama 2960, 7 Oct 2006. (French)

• Joel Harrison, "Web Poetics and the Gift Economy: nzepc, PennSound and UbuWeb", Ka Mate Ka Ora: A New Zealand Journal of Poetry and Poetics 2, Auckland, Jul 2006, pp 5-21, PDF. [59]

• Stefan Drees, "klang, körper, text: «UbuWeb» ist eine Fundgrube für Material aus den grenzbereichen der Künste", Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 167:4, Mainz, Jul/Aug 2006, pp 52-53. [60] (German)

• Kenneth Goldsmith, "The End of UbuWeb", UB Poetics discussion group, 1 Jun 2005.

• Marcus Boon, "UbuWeb", The Wire 220, London, Jun 2002, p 78, HTML. [61]

• Kenneth Goldsmith, "Ubuweb wants to be Free", 2001. Open letter.

Links

Website. Bluesky. Avant-Garde All The Time, podcast series, 2007-2011. Mirror: ubu-mirror.ch. UbuWeb web archive, Library of Congress. Memory of the World repertorium. Wikipedia.